Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Greetings, dear ones.
It wasn’t long after returning from our walk/jog without getting wet that it began to pour rain. It’s not really raining at this minute either. But the sky looks like it’s not finished with its dripping.
Becki is off to her Woodburn Bible Study. I need to get on with some income-generating work. At least I have a lot of it stacked up. I wrote a few objectives on my list for the day. But I need to be careful not to be too exhaustive with the list as it could make me feel too overwhelmed. By confessing that, you may be able to tell that I’m kind of a lousy businessman insofar as some success standards are concerned. But I guess it’s actually kind of fun to be border-line overwhelmed with too much to do—as opposed to being overwhelmed with too little.
Blessings on your never-happened-before day.
Love, Dad/Ray.
Barnabas was a special guy that lived up to the meaning of his name—“Son of consolation, compassion, encouragement.” Let me cite here an entry from a Bible dictionary: “Barnabas — son of consolation, the surname of Joses, a Levite (Acts 4:36). His name stands first on the list of prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch (13:1). Luke speaks of him as a "good man" (11:24). He was born of Jewish parents of the tribe of Levi. He was a native of Cyprus, where he had a possession of land (Acts 4:36,37), which he sold. His personal appearance is supposed to have been dignified and commanding (Acts 14:11,12). When Paul returned to Jerusalem after his conversion, Barnabas took him and introduced him to the apostles (9:27). They had probably been companions as students in the school of Gamaliel.” (from Easton's Bible Dictionary, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
While Barnabas is not given a huge amount of attention in the New Testament record, it is enough to offer us a worthy a role model Christian character. Notice what makes him happy and motivates him in this setting: “…he was glad and encouraged them…” That’s what encouragers do. I’ve been in too many church situations where the preacher seemed to be more bent on beating up the sheep than encouraging them.
Focus now on the main focus of his encouragement—“…and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.” Remaining “true to the Lord” is a given—it’s an obvious need. The part that can so easily get by us, and be so subjected to subtle compromise, is the part that says, “with all their hearts.” It rings again of the first commandment. It underscores again the foundational essential of a passionate HEART AFTER GOD.
This emphasis is still growing on me. Let me attempt to encourage you with this simple idea: THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT THAT YOU AND I CAN GIVE TO OUR SPOUSES, CHILDREN, AND COMMUNITY IS THE ROLE MODEL OF A PASSIONATE HEART AFTER GOD. It’s the most effective form of Biblical encouragement available.
Oh Lord—be free to work in each of us toward being effective encouragers concerning things important.